


Adjustment Difficulties

by PartnerBeast



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartnerBeast/pseuds/PartnerBeast
Summary: In a repurposed silk-mill just above the motorway exit, a Junior Officer experiences difficulties with his peers. Across the river, a twice-decorated Lieutenant goes looking for something harder than a regular psychiatrist.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	1. In Which Lt. Kitsuragi Makes a Mistake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kawa (fandomonymous)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomonymous/gifts).



> Disclaimer and Dedication
> 
> This work is not canon. I have no legal or moral right to use these characters or this world. It is an intentional affront to the intellectual property of ZA/UM and the creative genius of Robert Kurvitz, and that of his merry band of reprobates. But, in an age where creativity is moribund and satire is impossible, you’ve still got to find a way show the people you love that you’re willing to crank out 10,000 words and counting for them somehow. This is my attempt. Happy birthday, Kawa.
> 
> Beta reading generously provided by Alphawave

**Chapter One:**

**In Which Lt. Kitsuragi Makes a Mistake**

Section 131.4.8 of the Criminal Code specifies that it is a misdemeanor punishable up to four months imprisonment or a 2000 réal fine for anyone other than full officers of the currently contracted police force (in this case, the Revachol Citizens’ Militia) to have access to police files unless supervised by a member of that service of the rank of Sergeant or above.

Section 7.9.23.f confirms that Junior Officers do not have full officer status. Page 47 of the Policies and Procedures manual of the Revachol Citizens’ Militia states that officers on modified duty due to injury are able to work in Clerical and Administrative Supervisory roles even when they have not passed the appropriate Civil Service Examinations. Which is why Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi was unable to get out of overseeing Junior Officer de Ruyter in finally indexing the sex crime reports from the spring of 44.

The work was simple: quickly look over the files to confirm that they are, indeed, A) actually sex crime cases; and B) dated from spring of year 44 of the current century. If they are, then place them in order by 1) week; and 2) call number. If not then either place them in the green bin at the end of the shelf if A) was true and B) was not,or if A) was not true, place them in the colored bin in the correct section for the year, season and crime category. It was not hard to fall into a rhythm, and once in a rhythm with a colleague (however tenuous and begrudging), conversation has a way of breaking out.

“So, Junior Officer, how are you getting along with your fellow recruits?”

“Just dandy, thanks, sir.”

That should have been that, but Kim Kitsuragi had spent too long as a Juvenile Officer to let one of his subordinates, however transitory, skate by with such a childish evasion. He’d have to make a play.

“So is ‘dandy’ better or worse than ‘fine?’”

“Dandy means Cuno’s not a snitch, and certainly not gonna rat on himself.” Played like a fiddle, Kim allowed himself a moment’s self-congratulation.

“It would be more effort that it would be worth to involve myself in your discipline. But perhaps I can help you avoid such situations in the future.”

“’s’nothing. It’s just. You know I’m not Junior Officer material.”

Whether Kim thought it was true or not, it was concerning that Cuno, who had never before betrayed a hint of self-doubt in his presence, thought so.

“Did someone tell you that you’re unworthy of the uniform?” Not that the patrol cloak was much of a uniform, but Lieutenant nonetheless felt duty-bound to honor it.

“Lot of the other Junior Officers say it. Lot of ‘em say I’m too weedy to make the grade. I’m 14 on paper, which is already a year too young, and I sure as…” Kim granted him half a point for stopping just short of the swear, “don’t look it.”

“Perhaps you are a late bloomer,” Kim said diplomatically.

“But it don’t matter, does it. The important part is I’m the new meat. Cuno’s the new meat, and so it’s gotta be tenderized. Gonna beat the meat ‘til it fits the mold. Gonna piss the Cuno off so there's an excuse to beat the meat like they were gonna anyway. And then because Cuno technically made the first move, he’s the one assigned to punishment duty in the stacks…” Cuno’s voice trailed off into light grumbles.

Of course, and all was finally made clear.

“If you knew that, why did you allow yourself to rise to the bait?”

“So, what, the Cuno’s just supposed to let ‘em say what they want and take it?” Cuno huffed.

“What does what they say have to do with what you feel? If you can’t learn to make that distinction, I’m not sure whether you’ll last long enough to become a Patrol Officer.”

“What, is that some sort of Cop Technique? You gonna teach me the Volta do Coppo?”

“Your thoughts are your own, Junior Officer,” Kim said. “Have you ever wondered whether it was possible to divorce your thoughts from your actions?”

The unpleasant ginger’s face lit up.

“That explains it! Shoulda’ been obvious, you’re the _other_ kind of binoclard.”

Lt. Kitsuragi tried not to dignify this with a response, the slur alone should have sufficed, but something in this infernal child-colleague’s phrasing aroused his curiosity.

“What do you mean, _other_ kind?”

“So check this, most idiots who wear glasses are idiots who can see what’s in front of their face but nothing past it.”

It was in fact true that hyperopia like the lieutenant had was roughly a third as common as myopia, or nearsightedness. The lieutenant strapped himself in: the longer the trail of provable facts, the sharper the turn would be when it inevitably came.

“When you’re like that, you’re smart or you’re dumb, but the only thing that’s different is you’ve got busted eyes. But sometimes, you’re not born this way. Sometimes you do it to yourself.”

The lieutenant’s stomach twisted, like he was riding a Rock-o-Stat at a fairground that had just gotten up to speed but had not yet begun to corkscrew.

“And how might one do that?”

“When your brain works too fast when you’re too young, ‘swhy Cuno couldn’t let himself get hooked on the book early. The wheels’d start turnin’, setting off sparks. Suddenly everything catches light, goes up, and you can only see what’s not in front of your face.”

Like an Innocence in reverse? A light only its bearer could see, blinding rather than illuminating. The lieutenant was briefly speechless, contemplating whether such a thing was possible or, worse yet, applicable to his own life.

“It’s proper science, right? Now that Cuno’s thirteen, he’s got a head big enough to hold the whole truth.” He rapped a knuckle on his temple triumphantly.

Was the awful child a poet? Was he even doing it on purpose? Did any poet actually do whatever poets presumably do on purpose? Kim had only ever met poets in the course of his investigations, where they proved frustratingly unwilling to explain their creative processes. But there would be time to ruminate when he was off the clock. He grabbed the file that the hell-apprentice had just stuck onto the shelf. It was marked as a homicide, little sticker and all; even a child could have realized that.

“You’ll need to be more mindful, de Ruyter.” The lieutenant raised his voice two full decibels, “this one is clearly misfiled and should be placed with the homicides.”

“Check the autopsy report, Bino. Read it and weep.”

It was not misfiled after all. Ponder that for a minute, it only took the lieutenant four seconds.

“Very well.”

The lieutenant knew he made mistakes when distracted. He could do this more efficiently alone. But the purpose was not merely to get these files in order. The purpose, as he’d been told when he’d been given his own Junior Officer’s cloak at fifteen, was (and the words lay heavily upon his memory) “to familiarize the incoming officer with the policies and procedures of the Revachol Citizens’ Militia, The Wayfarer Act and the Criminal Code so they could benefit from the institutional wisdom of their mentors under practical conditions.”

In practice, this involved placing Junior Officer Kitsuragi in a file room or a restroom or a gang war and telling him to “figure it out, kiddo.” He had promised himself that he would do better, if the roles were ever reversed. When the roles were ever reversed. And yet, here he was, and there were the roles, and what was he even…

“So Lieutenant,” the screeching boy-detective mercifully tore the lieutenant from his memories, “how did you get like this?”

The lieutenant focused on the boy before him, barely a teenager, acne and generational trauma all over his face.

“How did I get like what?” He asked.

“Like, able to keep all this inside-like. Behind the binos. Beneath the mask. Even the eyes all cold and dead outside.”

“A childhood of being told I was too stupid to understand, and of being punished when I inevitably did.” Wait. Had he said that aloud? Why?

"Cuno got all that, from his da' even, and he just became the Cuno."

"I am unfortunately aware. But your father wasn't there all the time.”

Cuno was silent at this, torn between wishing it had been otherwise and wishing it had been otherwise in the opposite direction.

"So imagine what would have happened if you had never been alone.”

"Grown-ups don't usually hit kids when there's too many witnesses."

Neither boy nor man mentioned the exceptions.

"But children," and the lieutenant raised his glasses so he could massage his freshly-closed eyelids with his thumb and forefinger, "are under no such restriction."

"Cuno knows that. The trick is to get them alone..."

The lieutenant was familiar with the pattern. He had spent longer in Juvenile Crimes than Cuno had been alive.

"But, as I'd said, you're never alone in an orphanage. Eating, sleeping, no stalls on the toilets or the showers," Kim did not let up.

"Cuno'd go psycho-like. Cuno'd go Cunoesse. That'd get him left alone."

"What if it had started when you were four? What if it were as natural as your father?"

The hideous child-thing paused a moment before speaking.

"Bino'd yourself proper early, then, did ya?"

Lt. Kitsuragi did not dignify this with a response, and the two completed the inventory without any further unnecessary talk.

The terrible child was actually competent at alphabetizing, which gave Kim the unwelcome leisure of wondering whether the skill of being a human can-opener could also be practiced, or whether it was that ineffable combination of innate and contagious. The lieutenant knew he would have to ask Detective-Lieutenant (double-yefreitor) Dubois when he got back from his appointment.


	2. Chapter Two: In which a Yefreitor Says He Has an Appointment

La Delta was different. So different that the August sun didn’t even rise over the Esperance like it does in Jamrock. When you’re in Jamrock, the sun peeked out over the water just north of the Delta’s towering skyscrapers, assuming you were high enough up that the towers of Grand Couron didn't blot it out. In La Delta, sunrise was an overland victory, the first streaks of orange and gold becoming visible in the far distance, over the Hospital in Saint-Batiste where the rich folks die. And if even the sun treated you differently on La Delta, what could you expect from the people? 

Detective Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Harrier DuBois was not used to being on this side of the river. He was particularly not used to being a scant hundred meters from the old Summer Palace (demolished, turned into condos which were in turn demolished and turned into a mixed-use development anchored by formula retail, its surviving outbuildings are now the Revachol Offices for the Moralintern Authority on Sociocultural Redevelopment), at the outer gates of Precinct One of the Revachol Citizen’s Militia, the RCM’s administrative headquarters and the sole precinct outside the International Zone.

Precinct One loomed among the wide, Suzerainty-era boulevards of central La Delta, a solid stone building with four crenellated towers like a small castle, the two towers in front stood twice as tall as the rest of the building. Precinct 1 of the Revachol Citizen's Militia was not the first station the RCM had operated out of[1]. It was, however, the first headquarters to be recognized by the Coalition Government. It had been built during the reign of Filippe the Fourth for his Master of Hounds, and the RCM left the stonework depicting hunting scenes (with quarries both animal and human) mostly intact, along with the kennels in the basement. In short, it was functional, historically significant and damnably intimidating.

In Harry’s favor, he was in uniform. An actual uniform with an actual serious tie that didn’t give people headaches. He was sober. He had a note, a legit one, written by Vicquemare and countersigned by the Lazareth, even if Vicquemare had treated it as a particularly mordant joke. And one trick up his sleeve.

That trick was not an appointment, but not for lack of trying. Precinct 1’s Main Switchboard was professional and thus unhelpful. So he gave Gottlieb a call and the Lazareth, thrown off balance by the fact that Harry was actually trying to follow through on one of his suggestions, made the mistake of giving him the frequency of the Central Forensic Division’s switchboard. That conversation went like this:

“10-2, Forensics, come in, over.”

“10-4, this is Lt. DuBois with the 41st. Do you handle Forensic Psychiatry? Over.”

“That’s an affirmative. Just send over the evidence packet as you would for a body only use a profiling form instead of an autopsy form.”

“I was kind of hoping I could come in and discuss it with the doctor himself.”

“I assure you, Lieutenant, that would be against procedure.”

“I’m not doubting the procedures, but this is an unusual case.”

“Let me be clear, Lieutenant, the only people Dr. Kleinspiel sees are the ones she’s testifying before and the ones she’s interrogating. Over.”

“Roger that, 10-10, over and out.”

Harry, in his years of training and professional experience, could tell when he was in a situation where the smart move was to take no for an answer. He saw no reason to die on this hill: it was time to take a different approach.

His next step was to the file room, where he pulled out the thickest sex crime file he could find from the last five years and flipped over to the psychological profile. And there on the last page was the signature “S. Kleinspiel” and on the cross-copy list was ‘P1TL3-12’: the code for Precinct One, Tower Left, 3rd room, 12th floor. Which brought us to fifteen hours later, as Harry strode purposefully through the three-meter high double doors, past the armed sentries who didn’t even have time to yell “halt.”

“Excuse me, Officer…” a uniformed desk Sergeant stood up, as Harry ignored both him and the armed officers standing on the inside of the doors. Harry flashed his badge to halt their advance. And lifted his ace in the hole, an official RCM Secure Documents Pouch, full to bursting, with an official RCM padlock holding it shut.

“Lt. Double-Yefreitor Dubois, Sergeant. Precinct 41. Urgent business in the left tower. Have to discuss these reports _personally_.” 

“Right, down the hall to your right. Lift’s out of order, so you’ll have to hoof it.”

Harry did, and by the time he’d made it to the twelfth floor, someone must have called it in because the desk officer was in the process of tamping the gunpowder into his pepperbox.

Harry said the right words, yelled the righter ones and found himself forcing his way into a room with a scared, blonde woman once more. He was deeply ashamed, and only barely understood why.

To explain, let us look at the scene again, from the Frau Doktor’s perspective.

Frau Doctor Sabrina Kleinspiel was not having the best morning. She had two separate experts on group personality theory yelling at her over the wireless that the other was a charlatan that she should denounce. She had begun to notice one of the new coroners was beginning to include racial science in with the forensic science, and had tossed off a strongly worded memo about professional decorum. She had a presentation for a group of precinct captains that had been rescheduled twice already, and was threatening to be not only be rescheduled again but somehow combined with next month’s scheduled presentation. This was not ideal, as it would require she redirect her staff to update the transparencies. Said staff, of course, did not exist since there was a hiring freeze on. And to top it all off, she’d just dyed her hair platinum blonde last night, and it was already turning brassy.

She looked around her tiny office. Consulting chair, consulting desk, full-length lay-down leather couch on which nobody had even sat--let alone used--dominating one entire wall, file cabinet in the corner behind the door and two whole unused square meters of floor space. She stared at the frieze over her window, a bas-relief of a footman attaching a bridle to a horse. Her wireless buzzed, she grabbed the handset on instinct.

“10-2, Kleinspiel.”

“Doctor, we have a situation.” It was the desk officer, a combination of security guard and receptionist, Tony she thought, or maybe Toby.

“10-4, please advise.”

“I just got a call from downstairs. A lieutenant from the wrong side of the river is on his way to see you.”

He did not need to explain that this was completely against procedure. He continued.

“I had them shut down the lift, so if he’s coming, he’ll at least be winded.”

Knowing that further consideration of her situation would only lead to negative rumination, Sabrina found herself thinking of the bridle. Such a strange word. In her native Königstein, it's a different one. Not that anyone there actually uses the language. It's an interisolary world, her father had told her, so you need to think interisolary thoughts. So she became a psychiatrist to spite him. To spite her, he was proud she had become a doctor. To spite him, she had taken a position far from the center of the world doing poorly paid work that would suck the air out of any cocktail party. To spite her, he was even prouder that she had managed to make a life without any of the advantages he could have provided. As iron sharpens iron, sayeth the proverbs. And now there was a madman pounding on her door.

“Let me in, I’m a Double-Yefreitor and I have important Precinct 41 business to discuss!”

Dr. Kleinspiel’s blood ran cold.

In the year 51 of the current century, there were two Lieutenants Double-Yefreitor in Precinct 41, out of 16 in the entire half-century history of the RCM. And that’s assuming you start the count with the ICM rather than when the RCM was first leased its recognition by the Coalition. Very few people bothered to learn the names of any of them, unless they treated the RCM with the same misguided interest that led to rugby fanaticism, let alone all 16. Single Yefreitors were not that uncommon but, having declined a promotion, it is only under the rarest circumstance that a Lieutenant would be asked to reconsider. Even rarer would be those cases in which the repeated offer wasn’t directly related to the death or retirement of the Precinct Captain. The only Lieutenant that Dr. Kleinspiel was familiar with who had declined an offer for promotion twice was Precinct 41’s other Double-Yefreitor: John McCoy.

“What is this in regard to,” she spoke loudly.

This is because Forensics, and particularly Dr. Kleinspiel, had been tasked with profiling McCoy because the smart money believed that it was only a matter of time before he crossed the line from Loose Cannon to Sequence Killer. The key distinction being that sequence killers are physiologically incapable of remorse. This was incontrovertible scientific fact. The other key distinction being that loose cannons limit themselves to victims that the newspapers approve of (or at least can be convinced to treat as acceptable losses). This was never spoken aloud _._

“I need to see you, this isn’t something I can discuss openly,” the man outside said.

“Hey,” she heard the muffled voice of Toby, “I told you the Doctor’s busy.”

“I understand. But you wouldn’t let me make an appointment.”

“And as downstairs no doubt told you, we want your report, not your ass.”

“Fine, here, take it!” She could hear something heavy strike poor Toby. Something, she hoped it was something but she knew how hopes lie, fell loudly on his desk. She heard footsteps and suddenly the voice was closer, against her door.

“I have documentation!” She waited for gunshots, but Toby was oddly silent.

“Slide it under the door!” She shouted. Hoping it would stall him.

There was a rustle, and there was a standard issue RCM correspondence envelope (letter size). She sliced open the stick-on seal with her fingernail and extracted the document inside.
    
    
         14 Aug 51.
    
    
         MEDICAL EXEMPTION
    
    
         LT (2xY) DuBois to seek Psychiatric help. Not Psychologist. Not Psychiatrist.
    
    
         Next level of seriousness. Forensic Psychiatrist. Return on or before 16 Aug 51.
    
    
         J. Vicquemare          N. Gottlieb
    
    
         Sat. Off. (LT)         Laz.

Dr. Kleinspiel inhaled sharply from the combination of shock and confusion, filling her lungs that were already full of held breath, sending her into a coughing fit.

“You OK in there?” That gravelly voice sounded so genuinely concerned. Which was impossible, the Psychoanalytic theory was clear, as was the diagnosis in McCoy’s file. But that meant…

“You’re…not McCoy?”

“You know McCoy?”

“Only by reputation.”

“He’s misunderstood!”

“I have read every Use of Lethal Force Report he filed. His latest one is just the word ‘yes.’”

“Look, I acknowledge he’s a loose cannon. But he’s not here now. Can I come in?”

“What’d you do to Toby?”

“I threw my evidence pouch at him, like he asked. Thing’s got to weigh three kilos. And I undid the clasp when I threw it, which means the documents are everywhere now. He’s going to be spending the next minute unable to decide whether he should be loading his weapon, calling downstairs for backup or avoiding exposing himself to charges of Failure to Ensure Proper Custody of a Classified Evidence Packet.”

This is a much more difficult choice than it would sound to the lay reader. Per the RCM Charter, one of the RCM's Primary Duties is to ensure that evidence produced by an RCM officer is untouched before it is properly processed either by one of the Coalition Courts in Couron and La Delta or a Duly Deputized Professional, like Dr. Kleinspiel. Failing to do so is one of the few offenses that can end an RCM officer's career without an investigation by the Inspectorate General.

“How does one even...” the Doctor was morbidly curious. How could he even open a sealed RCM evidence pouch in a single fluid motion? Even after unlocking the damn thing, it usually took her two hands and a paper knife? How would he even know how someone, however well trained, would freeze up like that? How can one fit more than a single kilogram in a standard evidence pouch? She cleared her throat, these were distractions.

"Then what did you place in the evidence pouch?"

“Major Crimes Unit files. Just the relevant ones.”

“Relevant to?”

“My condition. Again, could you let me in?”

Hell, in for a centime, in for a réal.

“Come in, then, Lieutenant…” she undid the bolt and stepped quickly to the side, pulling the door open in front of her. In case she’d misread the odds, she’d have the door in front of her, the file cabinet on one side and the desk on the other.

He was very much not McCoy. For one thing, McCoy was reportedly much cleaner shaven. For another, McCoy was clinically incapable of showing remorse. This man was a study in momentum: he barreled forward into the room, avoiding all obstacles including her consulting chair, crossing it in the blink of an eye until instinct told him he was about to crash into a twelfth story window. Then he threw out a leg, turned a full 180 degrees, stopped and looked her in the eye. Whereupon she could see his face make the same journey from frantic action, to realizing he has just made a huge mistake followed by a whiplash into remorse. The man was suddenly, suspiciously the embodiment of the word sorry without giving a single sign he understood why. 

For a brief moment, she wondered if McCoy would have been better as he was at least a known quantity. She decided that she would reserve judgment as this one did not, at least, have his service weapon out and primed.

“Now if you could lay down on the couch and tell me what’s the matter, we can begin.”

“Dubois, Harrier. Lt. Double-Yefreitor, 41stprecinct. C-Wing. Alcoholic. Amnesiac. Possibly worse.” His last word was cut off as he flopped face down onto the couch in an impossibly smooth sideways motion, his incongruous green snakeskin shoes (imitation, she presumed) on the clean paper towel where the patient’s head was supposed to be.

“So Detective,” Dr. Kleinspiel began, shutting the door, turning the hidden switch under her desk that activated the “In Session/Do Not Disturb” light on Toby’s console and then forcing herself to sit down, forcing Clinical Practice to the forefront, “tell me, what is the first thing you remember about your mother…”

* * *

[1]According to legend, it was Old Pryce's barn. The truth was more complicated: the Pryce barn--located on what is now the border of Vilalobos and the Valley of Dogs--was actually the RCM's first armory, full of illegal firearms and occasionally a motor carriage.


	3. In which Junior Officer de Ruyter Learns About Nuance

Page 63 of the Policies and Procedures Manual of the Revachol Citizens’ Militia states that Junior Officers, unless given specific orders otherwise, are to be present at their Assigned Precinct at or before 8 AM. The Moralintern Directive on Suggested Hours of Underage Labor (Year 44) states that youth in employment that is not Rehabilitative or Family Owned may not work more than six hours without a break or eight hours total without the filing of an Exception Waver. RCM Precinct 41 has shifts starting at 08:00, 18:00 and 02:00[1], and it is Precinct 41 policy that no officer below the rank of Sergeant working a regular duty rotation shall be required to work more than half an hour past the official end of his shift except in a Declared Emergency. This left a two-hour lacuna where Junior Officer de Ruyter was not required to work nor was he technically forbidden to be on premises, and this was Cuno’s favorite time of the day.

At first, he’d hated end of shift because the other Junior Officers hung around by the gates and they liked him no more then than they did now. Nobody likes the jerk that got where they are without appearing to have paid their dues, and Cuno lacked the requisite birthdays and body hair for them to recognize him as one of their own. Maybe after another year of shared trauma, but what good did that do him now?

Then he discovered the gap in the chain-link fence, which would allow him to exit the station from the corner of the lot and shimmy down the support pillar down to street level, thereby avoiding any unpleasantness. That worked for a week, until the Desk Sergeant realized his pay-card didn’t have any out stamps. So another two weeks of restricted duty.

Which was when he realized, he could hide on the other side of the gap in the fence after his shift, slipping back in just before eighteen hundred, when he could join the rush of Patrol Officers, Civilian Aides and Reduced Duties, and be out on the street before anyone noticed. If that meant that he could sometimes score a ride back to the Police Barracks with someone who actually owned an M.C., all the better. But even without that, an hour and change to just sit in a liminal[2]space and watch his fellow officers come and go without being seen or noticed? That was its own reward.

At 17:40, Torson and McLaine strutted over the bridge towards the station, stride full of purpose and ledgers full of Station Call stubs and Misconduct Fine receipts. Torson dressed like a stripper dressed like a Mesque ‘banger in a mesh tank top and FALN track pants with the buttons up the side, McLaine dressed like a Boogie Street pimp dressed like a used M.C. salesman. The only parts of them not moving in purposeful lockstep were their eyes, which darted in seemingly random directions. They passed the sentries on duty on the bridge without missing a step, their very existence was all the identification they needed. And then suddenly McLaine stopped and threw out a hand in front of his much larger partner.

“Tors’, you see that?”

“Where?”

“Security fence, corner.”

“Shit, that someone?”

“Hey, you up there,” Cuno could see the whites of Chester McLaine’s eyes, “identify yourself!”

Shit. He’d been made. Run? No, if he ran outside, he knew he’d be going through them or jumping and jumping was the safer bet. Inside? No, they’d think he was an intruder and sound the alarm, and then he’d really be in the shit.

Looks like he had no choice but to reveal himself fully. “Junior Officer de Ruyter, sir.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing up there? You gonna jump?” Torson asked.

“Maybe he doesn’t think his life’s worth living.” McLaine answered for him.

“I…” Cuno was barely able to stammer out, realizing too late how much easier it would to do this if he were riding the train.

“If he doesn’t answer,” Torson continues, “he’s gonna be right.”

“If he gives the wrong answer, he’s gonna wish he’d jumped,” McLaine finished.

Cuno missed the days when he could just punch his ticket, pop the amp and he’d be thinking outside every box this side of Coal City. Crashing through the wa…of fuckin’ course, “I found a breach in the perimeter and was checking it out.”

McLaine nodded, his gaze pinning Cuno to the spot. 

“Lemme guess, you were just about to report it?” Torson snorted.

“Only you wanted to stretch your legs, maybe watch the traffic go by.”

“Yeah, exactly…”

“Meet us by the gate once you’ve made your report,” Torson interjected.

“We’ll know if you don’t. We know who you are. We know how to find you.” McLaine nodded, his smile mirthless.

“Don’t make us prove it.” Torson finished, and the pair turned back towards the front gate.

Seventeen minutes, and three attempts at Form 2549-C (Report of Breach of Station Security) later, Cuno was going through his pockets. He had a Réal and eighty-four cents in his trouser pocket, his ID card in his breast pocket and a shoplifted copy of _Dick Mullen in the Murderhouse_ in the pocket of his patrol cloak. He’d peeled the price tag off the book the day he’d stolen it and penciled a “2” on its first page, so he could convincingly argue he’d bought it used. Which means he had one Réal, eighty four cents and fuck all to offer Torson and McLaine. What did they even want? What could he offer them that they couldn’t get outside? For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even know which one of their dicks to suck. His education on these matters, and most others, was woefully incomplete.

Which was when he raised his head to see Mack Torson affably socking Chester McLaine on the arm.

“So, wonderboy actually followed through.” McLaine interjected in mock surprise.

“And you thought he was going to scarper.”

“I’d have scarpered if I were him.”

When Cuno still regularly attended school, back when he was nine, the older boys played a game where they’d take your hat or your pencil case or something else you couldn’t afford to replace, and play catch with it. The fun of it came from your increasingly frenzied attempts to grab the flying pencil case. Cuno had experience on both sides of the game, but only now had he come to sympathize with the pencil case.

“Wait, wait a second, why the fuck are you two so different in here?”

“What do you mean different?” Torson asked, pointedly ignoring the expletive.

“Are you saying we’re inauthentic?” McLaine needled.

“No, ‘slike, outside it’s all business. And inside…”

“Party in the rear,” McLaine interjected.

“Wonderboy thinks you need a haircut, Chester,” scoffed Torson, “Wonderboy’s right.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s like, you saw the Cuno from the corner of your eye and were all search and destroy. And now you’re inside the walls and it’s like you’ve won the Rugby pools.”

“Some kind of jackpot anyway,” McLaine patted the inside pocket of his garish sport coat.

“Shakedown, then? Proper copitalization?”

“Ha! Wonderboy’s got a mouth on him.” Torson couldn’t help but grin.

“No, seriously, kid, do you really just always say the first thing that comes to your head?” McLaine shook his head.

“You’re the second cop to say that to me today.”

“Who was the first?”

“Lt. Kitsuragi.”

“Wait, he’s in the file room until he rehabilitates himself, how the hell did you get saddled with him?” McLaine pressed the examination.

“I said the first thing that came to my head to a coupla’ my fellow Junior Officers.”

“Gave ‘em the business, eh?” Said Torson.

“Positive pleasure, wasn’t it?” McLaine hit it back.

“Well, if the Cuno’s not supposed to say what’s natural, what the f…hell should I have done?”

“OK,” began McLaine, “everyone who has or has had a stable childhood with at least one parent who loved them, raise their hand.”

Mack ‘The Torso’ Torson’s hand went up.

“Right, Mack, you’re not gonna be of any use here.”

“Fuck off, Chester, if it weren’t for me you’d still be a Patrol Officer.”

“And if it weren’t for me, you’d still be letting your mother dress you.”

“Should I leave you two ladies alone?” Cuno found himself fitting into the banter like a game of catch.

“Again,” sighed McLaine, “that is precisely how you come to grief. Do you even know the word nuance?”

“I left school when I was nine. I can maybe spell it.”

“Nuance is the fanciest word you’ll ever need to know. Anything more than that, you’re showing off.” Torson began.

“Not actually true, but close enough,” Continued McLaine, “and that’s nuance. You don’t actually say what you mean. But you show it.”

“It’s the difference between saying ‘fuck off’ and saying ‘yes sir,’ but making him hear ‘fuck off.’”

“So what good does that do?” Cuno asked.

“Sometimes, especially in here, you can’t say what you need to say outright. But you’ve still got a point to get across.” Torson chopped the air.

“So you slide it past their defenses, and the message gets received.”

“And they can’t say shit because you didn’t say fuck.” Torson concluded.

“OK,” said Cuno, “so as long as someone’s bigger than me, I can’t go frontal? So what? I’m gonna have to wait until I’m built like a lorry,” he inclined his head at Torson,“until I get respect?”

“That's true on the streets, as far as it goes. But the second you get one of these,” Torson reached into the waistband of his track pants and pulled out a watch-chain from which hung his badge, “the rules change.”

“The badge changes the rules, because when you’ve got one, you’re not just a man.” Chester knew the routine, and his line.

Cuno had to bite his tongue until he felt his incisor leave a mark.

“You’re the law," Torson's voice boomed, "And the law doesn’t have to prove a damn thing it doesn’t want to.”

“Out there?” Chester waved his hand at the bridge, the motorway, and the city beyond, “there’s no room for nuance. Out there, you’ve got to be a cop.”

“You’ve got to be a shark.”

“Eat or be eaten, fuck or be fucked.”

“Outside these walls, nuance is for chumps and civilians.”

“What’s the difference, then?” asked Cuno.

Torson responded by ruffling Cuno’s hair with a hand that could palm a rugby ball. There was a time Cuno was five and his parents took him ice skating for the first time. There was a time Cuno was ten and he stepped on a patch of ice and his foot broke through and sank halfway up his calf. The times were safe and the times were danger and the times were now and for two blinks and a breath the times were one and the same.

“See, you catch on fast.”

* * *

[1]The shifts were made intentionally uneven in length in order to ensure they would be covered relatively evenly, as even officers who would ordinarily avoid a graveyard shift may well sign up for it if it were 60% the length of the 8-18. This policy was the sole remaining artifact of another of Capt. Pryce’s infatuations with management fads; in this case, it was a Liberal tract on applying the Economics of Auctions to ensure all despised duties went to the ones who hated them least.

[2]A word he’d read in a Dick Mullen novel and actually bothered to look up, because he liked the sound of it. Turns out, the meaning was just as tart.


	4. In which Something is Revealed

It was the second Tuesday that Frau Doctor Sabrina Kleinspiel was practicing Therapeutic Hours. Of course she was going to see him again, never mind he had broken a good dozen RCM regulations just by being on La Delta. Never mind that he had broken twice that many once he’d crossed the threshold. Never mind any of that: the man was a living specimen that she had only ever before seen in fossils. The man had lived through the Revolution, albeit as a baby, had come of age in time for the Thirties and these had happened in the same lifetime. He had seen his home fall catastrophically and rise meteorically and gently decline into an uncertain future, and he hadn't merely sat and watched it, he'd played an active part. 

In all of Dr. Kleinspiel’s training, in Mundi or her postdoctoral work in Graad or even east of the river, she had never had access to a genuinely undocumented pathology that had come voluntarily. Not in chains, nor a case study; neither behind a cell door nor behind a pattern of occult and cryptic behaviors but willingly sprawled upon her couch. She could not have asked for a more fortuitous chain of circumstances, context be damned.

She had been just as pleased to discover she could bill the RCM for it directly, provided she submitted the signed appointment form.

Her initial inquiries as to doctor-patient confidentiality were answered by a terse citation of regulation numbers. A cup of very strong coffee and half a pack of overpriced Marmalade Biscuits later, she was mostly assured that the carbon copies of the signed appointment forms would be placed in the same section of DuBois’ Personnel File as his Use of Deadly Force Reports. She idly wondered how long it would take, presuming she continued to see DuBois, before that section of his file grew thicker than that of McCoy’s respective section. She wondered, just as idly, whether it ever would. She did not sleep well that night.

So her curiosity was whetted, her fears regarding confidentiality were assuaged, her fears regarding the Iconic McCoy went unabated, but all the frustration and sleepless nights would be worthless if he _didn’t show up_.

There could be no doubt that the clock was correct; its central spring was connected to the central clock in the precinct basement by a clever series of pulleys and gears. And the clock insisted that it was 10:16. The appointment was at ten sharp. And if she didn’t have the signed appointment form, they’d _both_ be fucked.

Her office was too small to pace. Even without the damnable couch, her stride was long enough for her to get from her door to the window (with its admittedly spectacular view) in three steps. Not that she was that tall, certainly no taller than any man she would have considered dating. Not that she had actually had the time or the patience for, how long was it…

Enough. Pacing is exercise, and exercise is proven to be incompatible with rumination. And thus, it was only logical to remove her gray serge jacket and drape it over the back of her chair. It was only logical to hike her matching skirt from just below knee-length to just above knee-length and begin to descend pliés.

“That’s Drosselmeyer’s Third Routine, yes?”

Sabrina nearly jumped. If she had jumped, she could probably have gotten enough height to bang her head on the hanging lamp. As it was, she gasped and whirled around.

“You see, I used to be a gym teacher, so I’m familiar with most of the major exercise programs for most sports. Don’t think anyone actually teaches it, or even the First, much outside Mund…”

“The time is ten...” she pointedly looked at the clock over the doorframe, “…seventeen. You’re late.”

“Sorry I’m late doc, had some issues with the station calls some of the members of my squad brought in. Specifically, they actually showed…”

“Please,” there was ice in her words, “have a seat on the couch and we’ll get started.”

“So,” he began after situating himself, “how are we going to begin this time?”

“My role as therapist is flexible and situational, as is your role as Lieutenant. But I think in this context, I think we’d be best served by my helping you to get out of your own way. Specifically, I think we could do some useful work in identifying the patterns of behavior that do not serve you in attaining your goals, and working to modify them.”

“So is this one of my patterns? Switching at random between terrifying and disappointing a blonde-haired middle class woman?”

Doctor Kleinspiel, Frau Doktor Kleinspiel, prided herself on her professional detachment. She took threats in stride, knowing that her professional role was stronger than any identity her would-be intimidator could hide behind. She knew that her femininity was not a weakness, nor was it her whole story. She had been called posh, and she had been called insolvent but _fucking_ middle class.

“Are you OK, Doctor? You’re gonna break your pencil.”

The human can-opener. That was the nickname, well, the kindest of them anyway. And here he was, punching a goddamn hole in her. Well, she’d be damned if she dignified this with a response.

“Because if the RCM’s anything like it is on the other side of the river, you’re gonna have a hell of a time getting a replacement...”

Frau Doktor Kleinspiel was an independent woman who bought her own pencils, thank you very much. And kept the stationer’s receipts because business expenses are tax deductible.

“So when was the first time you can remember having to go without?” Dr. Kleinspiel began, armored in the raiment of her profession.

“…probably from the cradle. Shit, did I even have a cradle? You do get that we were poor, right. Like, full-on war broke.”

“But did it always feel like that?”

“No, that’s right, it felt natural.” He paused, she could see him realize that was not the answer he wanted from the way his shoulder hunched, and the way he immediately changed direction. “OK, OK, I don’t know if this is the first time I remember going without, but it’s the first one with a beginning, middle and end. So this had to be when I was eight or nine. Y’know, old enough to be on my own when there wasn’t school, but not old enough to be spending whole days in Le Royaume.”

“Do you mean that metaphorically?”

He blinked. He looked genuinely thrown, as if it were normal that children literally went down into abandoned burial grounds on a regular basis and she was the strange foreigner for not realizing it.

“I’d forgotten you’re not from around here. No, I mean the actual catacombs, or at least the tunnels around them. Before they sealed it up with concrete and turned it into a bus station, there was even an entrance to the tunnels on Boogie Street.”

“Go on.”

“So it was me, Woody and Kipt. And before you ask, Kipt was his actual name. His parents were intellectuals on the wrong side of some big debate, so they came here to prove that things were either not as bad as, or worse than, they were saying in Sur-La-Clef. They decided, being Interisolary Communists, that their kid needed an Interisolary name. And what could be more Interisolary than the little boy on the Tioumoutiri packet?”

“That must have been hard for him.”

“He made it work. Little asshole could hit like Contact Mike. You remember Contact Mike, the champ who came up from nothing. Nobody beli-”

“We got the sporting papers in Gottwald,” she cut him off without mercy, for she had a brother.

“Right. And his last name was fucking Kojkowicz, so he couldn’t even go by his last name. Anyone gave him lip, he’d say ‘my name’s Kipt, and I ain’t gonna let you take that away like they took my old man’s job…’”

“And who were ‘they,’ in this sentence?”

“Y’know, the actual Semenese, the Racists or the fucking Capitalists: whichever would start a fight. He knew that he couldn’t stop anyone from calling him Kipt, but he got real good at making sure nobody called him kipt. If you understand the distinction. Not like Woody got it any better, his real name was Bastiaan. But because he was lactose intolerant, and thus a maun, everyone wanted to know where his wooden shoes were. ‘Right here, BAM, right in the breadbasket!’ Years before Sambo got big and he was doing textbook snap kicks, hip-to-knee rotation of…”

“Did any of your friends have nicknames that weren’t the result of violence?” Dr. Kleinspiel interrupted again.

“I was Dubious.”

“Have you found clarity sin…oh.” It took her a second. “Because of the misspelling of your last name?”

“Yeah. Nobody could say shit about my first name, I’m not saying my mother had _good_ instincts _per se_ , but she had the best ones you could have under the circumstances.”

“Aces high?” She did not offer her hand, but her tone was game enough.

“Aces low. Right, so it was the three of us. We were kicking a tin around in the rubble. Shooting the shit, dragging the rubble for something we could sell or at least play with. Normal kid shit, you know what it’s like.”

Dr. Kleinspiel did not. Gottwald had established a comprehensive system of youth centers, after-school programs and pre-apprenticeships towards the end of previous century. In fact, a Gottwaldian parent who knew how to work the system could avoid having to interact with their child between the ages of 5 and 12 beyond ensuring (or hiring a housekeeper to ensure) that it got up and dressed in time for the bus wearing the proper colored school hat. One time, when Sabrina was eight, she switched hats for a week with her brother, who had just turned ten. He remembers it as a jolly lark while she remembers it as the time she discovered she could read above grade level.

“So right. I think we must have all been eight or nine. When all of a sudden we hear chanting and stomping. So of course we go over to look. And there are big boys, the youngest of them can’t be younger than ten, and the eldest might even be twelve. They’re in matching uniforms: shorts, button-down shirts with military looking patches and bits of ribbon, knee socks and boots and garrison caps with little badges on them. They said they were the Second _Equipé_ of the First _Peloton_ of the First _Escadron_ of the Pioneers of La Caillou (Escadron HQ: Couron). They said they were here because this was going to be their _zone d’explorée_ and did we want to join them?”

“And what did that mean?”

“Did you have Pioneers where you grew up?”

The answer was technically yes, but practically no. The Pioneers were started in Revachol during the reign of one of the Frissels in an attempt to teach Middle Class youth the Joys of the Out-of-Doors, and to get them to Identify as Junior Members of the Upper Class Tasked with Keeping their Inferiors in line rather than the Natural Leaders of the Common Folk. Gottwaldians believed that there were no inferior people, merely subordinate roles, and in the strict management of forestry. This meant that the Pioneers were mostly treated as a pre-Apprenticeship in timber management, which was a good enough job if you weren’t planning to go to university.

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

“So here’s the deal, as they told it to us. The Pioneers were all about exploring new and uncharted territory, which Revachol pretty much was after the bombs were done with it. They were assigned their _zone d’explorée_ by their _Peloton_ , who was assigned theirs by the _Escadron_ above them. They’d clean up the rubble, and fix the broken shit, and if they found anything neat that nobody owned, they got to keep it. And the important part was, they got to make recruits, like we would be. And as they got bigger, they’d become a Peloton and even eventually an _Escadron_ , and get more and more territory to explore and improve. And we’d become an _Equipé_ under them and maybe even grow to be a Peloton. And we’d get Head Taxes from our _subalterns,_ as they’d collect from us. And together, we’d put Jamrock on the map.”

“So you were sold?”

“Fuck, learning how to be explorers? Learning how to survive in the wilds, or at least the rubble, and build structures and orienteer on a map? Having neat uniforms and bigger boys who would back us up, even if they were from Couron? Having something bigger than us to belong to? How could we resist?”

“But there was a catch, wasn’t there?”

“Yeah, quite a few. But most of them we could ignore. The uniforms cost money, real money, but like they said we could owe ‘em until we started collecting Head Taxes of their own. The whole idea of a Head Tax was a bit worrisome, but what did we know about math? The real sticking point was, there had to be at least five and no more than nine of us. More then nine and they could maybe see their way clear to splitting us up into two _Equipés_ instead of one. So I begged them for some extra time to come up with a group, I was always the talker once I figured out my jaw…”

“Your jaw?”

“It’d been paralyzed by the polio. You see how it goes when I say ‘I am the law!’”

She did. Even from behind she could clearly see it go sideways in a way jaws were not supposed to.

“That must have been hard,” she said.

“Well, I was learning how to walk and to talk and to not piss myself in public, so it was just one more hoop to jump through, right? And I was feeling froggy because this shit was seriously hitting us on every level a red-blooded Jamrock boy could want. I knew right away I was gonna be dreaming about being a Pioneer that night. And I let them know that we were all but on the hook. So, anyway, they gave us a couple of two-color pamphlets, and told us to be here next Saturday or we’d miss our chance. Pfft, salesmanship 101, right there.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, we made a pact to meet up on Friday after school and make our choice. Then Woody and I got hopping. Tried to figure out, for the first time, what would make a good comrade in arms. Because we had friends, beyond the three of us, but most of ‘em were unsuitable. Either too soft, like D’Arcy next door, too unimaginative or the wrong kind of ambitious?”

“What was the wrong kind of ambition?”

“For example, Kipt had a pal, Etienne? Would’ve been perfect except he had one dream: to sail the Pale. He’d even started memorizing the, what’d he call ‘em, Mar’s Voltas?”

 _Volta do Mar_ , actually. Sabrina had had to do some of them when she took Entroponetics at the Gymnasium; she still used them when she had to do Interisolary travel.

“So he was out, no time for what he called stupid games. But yeah, between Woody and me we’d found three more boys who fit the bill. I’ll tell you about ‘em later.”

“What about girls?”

“There’d probably have been one or two who might have been game enough but first of all, we were eight year old boys and second of all, mixed groups got attention.”

“How so?”

“You see a bunch of boys skulking about, you know not to let them too close to anything nickable but you don’t pay them any more mind, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And likewise with girls, you basically know what to expect from ‘em and put them out of mind unless they do something different. But a bunch of mixed kids together, out of uniform?”

“That makes sense.”

“Besides, Kipt had actually read the pamphlet and it said the Pioneers were boys only. He told us a lot about more about what they said, besides. You see, Kipt had been busy too: he’d gotten us the adult sponsor. Well, first he had read the pamphlet through, even the fine print. And when he couldn’t understand it, he went to his dad who, as I told you, was an Intellectual, not that it earned him a single extra cent. And he came back with the lowdown of how it worked.”

“And how did the Pioneers actually work?”

“OK. So get this, you know the kickbacks that they’d mentioned? They went all the way up. Every time you wanted to qualify for an _Ordre de Mérite_ or an increase in rank, they were the ones to qualify you, and they were the ones who took 15% of the fee, which is what the Head Taxes were. Well, that and all purchases of Uniforms, Handbooks and Official Materiel. Not only that, but you wouldn’t be able to get past a certain rank until your whole group was large enough. And until they themselves got big enough, you included, they had to kick it up to the _Peloton_ which they qualified with, who in turn would have to kick up to the _Escadron_ with whom they qualified who would in turn have to kick up to and qualify with the _Regiment_ which was the first level that had to be run by adults.

“Which mean that not only would we be under these rich jerks’ thumbs, but any recruits we made would be under their thumbs too. And the bigger we got, the bigger they’d get, and they’d own us forever. And this was almost enough to sour us on the dream then and there.

“But Kipt and his papa were clever, they asked the question, where did the first _Escadron_ come from? because clearly they didn’t start with eighty boys at once. And so they went to the library, and found a Pioneer Handbook, and discovered that technically, even a single _équipe_ could receive a commission from the _Régiment d’ Pioner s_ as a _Section_ _Escroc_ if its headquarters was outside any _zone d’explorée.”_

“Ah,” Dr. Keinspiel broke in, “an Outrider Squad. Like the Franconigerian Cavalry’s Scout-Squires.”

“Precisely, and a _Section Escroc_ was directly under the Regiment in line of succession until they either grew to _Escadron_ strength or three years elapsed, whereupon they either disbanded or merged with the nearest _Escadron_ (or any _Pelotons_ who were not currently in debt). Which meant that for those three years, we’d be just as good as those boys from Couron and, better yet, would be able to draw from the local boys to increase our numbers (and kickbacks) until we were the hardest _Escadron_ in all of Revachol, hell, all of La Caillou!”

“And where was this Local _Régiment_?”

“Over in Sella Maris, East of the River, but Kipt’s papa was able to get us on the trolley, which was running this week. He was a part-time ticket taker when he needed the money and knew how to doctor the transfers so you could get on for free. Since Kipt’s papa was pretty sure we’d be done with this by the time we were eleven, he saw no downside. And it’d get Kipt's mama off his papa's back about not taking his share of the childcare duties. They were, after all, Progressive Intellectuals.

“So off we go, in our school clothes on a Saturday. For some of us, it’s the first time we’d crossed the river. Certainly for all of us the only time we crossed the river for a thing we’d wanted to do, rather than a thing we were taken to do.

“And all the way we’re thinking it’s gonna be in some converted royalist structure like this one. It’s gonna be grand and a bit decrepit and fuckin’ Magic. But we get off the trolley in the middle of a bunch of high-rises that were going up. Walk the three blocks to Rue de L’Espoir and find it’s an eight-story pre-revolution walk-up with buzzers and transoms and all the rest. Just as shabby and mundane as the offices Woody’s dad installed intercoms in.

“At least the framed posters on the wall were right. All boys in uniform climbing mountains and setting snares for small game and building floodwalls. And there’s a supercilious fellow in a Pioneer’s uniform with just a hint of gold braid sitting behind the desk. And he asks right off if we’re in the wrong place, wasn’t there already an _Escadron_ in Couron?

“And that straightens Kipt’s papa’s spine up like we’d never seen before. He was like a lawyer off the radio, polite and firm and asking the questions that we knew he knew the answers to. ‘Well, sir, what is precisely the edge of the _Escadron’s zone d’explorée_ , and ‘Isn’t one of you boys from Faubourg,’ Woody was right on the border, and Tags, yeah, must’ve been Tags was from even deeper in. It had to have been Tags because he was wearing a Rugby scarf. If it had been me or Kipt or even Woody, that would’ve been the Giraffes, but he was in Mountaineer Green and Silver.”

“Mountaineers? I don’t recall there being a team called that.” The last man she’d dated, longer than she’d like to admit ago, would not shut up about the Coal City Stormers.

“You wouldn’t, they changed their name to the Brigadiers in honor of the Cleanup Brigade after the People’s Pile disaster. Changed the colors too. Shit, was it only fifteen years ago?”

“’36, right?” Her University's Young Moralists had encouraged her whole class to write sympathy letters that year. She did not recall there being a collection of any sort. “So yes.”

“And there the two of them were. The Préfet in his Pioneer’s uniform and Kipt’s papa in what I now know was his Intellectual’s uniform, patches on the elbows and all, going at it chapter and verse. And finally, the Préfet admitted that technically if we placed our Headquarters in Faubourg we would, indeed, be able to register. And as soon as we paid the fifteen real per head Uniform and Materials fee.

“Kipt’s papa protested, stating that we had been assured both verbally and in the pamphlet that no money need be paid until we had started collecting Head Texas. The Préfet responded that ‘Head Taxes’ was the incorrect terminology and, while it was true that it was standard practice to postpone the initial payment of dues, nothing in official policy actually required that. In fact, it looked like the Faubourg chapter was already in a good position it even had an Adult Sponsor, so there would be no reason to waive the fee. But here’s what he would do, he’d let us pay half up front and the other half in a year’s time.”

“I can see how that would be an obstacle.”

“Between the seven of us, Kipt’s papa included, we had maybe ten Réal, and he had seven and a half of them. We could maybe, just maybe, beg, borrow or steal ten more. Forty-five Réal, let alone the full ninety? That was a month’s rent. That may as well have been the Orbe de Montaigne.”

“You must have been disappointed.”

“Yes, and not with Kipt’s papa, he fought for us. But we acknowledged he was a warrior, not a wizard. Kipt’s papa bought us 5 centime ice cream cones for the trip home, despite it being October, and we had a think while he spent some time in the stern of the ferry with his flask.”

“And what conclusion did you come to?

“So, the six of us--we wouldn’t be the full eight until the Expedition—realized that the world wouldn’t let us be Pioneers. So we set about figuring out what was better than being a Pioneer. I think it was Woody who remembered the Indotribes, and I know I was the one who objected that there were only fourteen of them and we didn’t have the Suzerain’s Patent. I don’t know which of us realized that there was no Suzerain anymore, so we could do it ourselves. But that was it, we were now officially the Fifteenth Indotribe founded in the year fifteen. So shit, I would’ve had to have been eight at the oldest.”

It was a lot to take in. A story of shattered dreams and class consciousness. An experience most Gottwalders wouldn't have until graduating their compulsory education, an experience a Gottwalder of her class could postpone indefinitely. It was fascinating, truly fascinating to her, but what did this mean to Lt. DuBois? Was there a deeper sadness? A deeper meaning? Meaning, to quote one of the thinkers from the Vredefort School whose name escaped her, was impossible without context. She sought it. 

“And what was the Fifteenth’s Indotribe’s Industrial Mandate?”

“Well, first and foremost it was cutting some nice clubs from a half-rotted wooden balustrade we’d found in the bombed-out husk of what I’m pretty sure now was a Roadwarden’s Station. The next order of business was finding those Pioneers, and collecting some Head Taxes of our own…”


	5. In which Junior Officer de Ruyter confronts Honesty

Finally, one of the radiocomputers in the basement of Station 41 clicked over, sending a pulse along the wire. The wire vibrated, making the Central Spring jump, and as the spring jolted, so did the hands of every clock to which it was connected. The clock in the watchtower had a separate tension gear that, when the clock struck six, turned 90 degrees counterclockwise, releasing the catch on the steam-powered siren. The siren then blasted for forty-five seconds, until the reservoir ran dry; the boiler would start going in another hour to build up sufficient steam for the next shift. And meanwhile, the men and women of the 8-18 shift were on their way home and Cuno was able to slip in among them.

Through the narrow gate of the employee entrance. Punchcard retrieved from the rack and slammed into the cardpunch. Then back to the rack and out the door. He was just about to run off in a random direction, in case any of the J.O.s decided to follow him, and then duck into a Frittte to lose him. Fritttes have their own pigs, don’t take kindly to pigs lurking around unless they’re buying something. Something like Turbo Noodles, maybe? Cuno was halfway through deciding what flavor of pretext he was going to have for dinner he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re de Ruyter, aren’t you?” An unfamiliar voice behind him said.

“Who wants to know?”

“You do know I outrank you.”

He finally looked back, and there was…a Patrol Officer, Cuno guessed. Shiny new uniform, shiny-ass boots, worn down eyes.

“Cuno’s off shift, out here there’s no rules but what we make!”

“…you’ve been listening to Torson and McLaine, haven’t you?”

“What’s wrong with Torson and McLaine? They’re _iconic_! Are you iconic?”

“No,” he sighed, “just honest. Let’s start this again.”

“OK, fine, show me whatcha got.”

“I’m Chad Tillbrook, I made Patrol Officer a bit before you started.”

“Congratulations?”

“So I know what you’re going through. For all I know, that might’ve been my Patrol Cloak.”

“They make you give it back?”

“Had my growth spurt. By the time I turned seventeen it would have been above the knee. Which meant I’d have been out of uniform.”

“What? Were they gonna’ make you kneel down and if your cloak don’t touch the floor, they whack the back of your knees with a meter stick?”

“Co-ed charity school, huh?”

“Til the Cuno dropped out. Learned way more on the street.”

Why were adults always rubbing their closed eyelids around him, Cuno wondered. Was this what happens to your binoclardization glands after your balls dropped all the way? Cuno’s balls were textbook, the Lazareth told him at his intake physical. So why wasn’t Cuno feeling the eyestrain?

“No, seriously,” Cuno attempted to reassure his interlocutor, even going back to the first person, “I can tell a gram by feel now.”

“If you’re trying to make me not feel sad for you, you’re doing the opposite of helping your case.”

“So what, you’re here to have pity on the new meat? This how it works? You’re the good cop, the other J.O.’s are the bad cops and I’m the…”

“You know, I’m almost curious to see how you thought that would turn out.”

“Only almost?”

“As I said, I still remember what it’s like to be a Junior Officer so I doubt you could surprise me. And since I’m honest, therefore...”

Cuno stopped for a second. He was not used to stopping in the middle of a conversation but something wasn’t right. Did he just say he was honest? Twice in a row? Without even the twitch of an eyelid?

“Wait, like, full-on honest.”

“Straight edge, hardcore.”

“Just go ahead and write me up.”

“Even if I could, why would I do that.”

“Because Cuno’s gonna swear now. Cuno’s gonna swear and the Innocence of Pigs is gonna rat him out. Cuno pays attention. Cuno listens when he’s yelled at.”

“Firstly, you have my word that I will ignore a reasonable amount of profanity.”

“What’s your word worth?”

“Look, if I really am as honest as I claim to be, my word is enough to ignore the Coalition Directive on Preventing Junior Delinquency in Uniformed Services of Year '28 like the rest of the station clearly does with your compatriots.”

“Not to their face. That s…” he caught himself.

“Grounds for push-ups, eh? I remember those days.”

“Cuno look like one of the Top Ten Most Able Bodied Pigs?”

“Keep it up and you will be.”

“That a threat or a promise?”

“Neither, merely an honest statement.”

“And that’s where the Cuno is going to call bullshit. From the day they gave the Cuno his cloak, the right move has always been to lie. ‘Yes sir,’ whether or not the Cuno can do it or not. You’ve read the laws, Junior Officers have to recite the damn laws, and the laws grant us fuck all authority. And then we use nuance, and let the citizens and criminals think we’ve got every right to do what we’re doing, and that’s another kind of lie. And then we write up our reports for the courts, all nice and legal and detailed and entirely a bunch of lies. And meanwhile you’re kicking back half your salary to your Sergeant and expected to make up the difference through writing bullshit tickets.”

“You know, the other Junior Officers shouldn’t be so hard on you. Some of them have two years on you and maybe half of them could have put it as clearly as you just did.”

“So, what, you’re not gonna deny that’s how it works?”

“Of course not, I wake up every morning and I fight against it. I try to balance being a good cop and a good man. I don’t always succeed, but when I fail, you know which side I intend to fall on.”

“Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. You’re not an innocence after all, you’re a damn Cryptid!”

“And you’d be the expert in those, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Easy, Tiger. I didn’t mean what you think I meant.”

"The fuck do you mean, then?"

“I saw Lt. Du Bois the other day..." If Tillbrook was telling the truth, he’d seen more of Lt. DuBois than Cuno had the whole summer. One more lie. Cuno tuned back in before Sad FM could get him in trouble for inattention.

"...and it was so inhuman, no, so _alien_ that he couldn't even believe it was moving. And that you were there to see it, that’s how he recruited you.” 

“That’s true, Cuno saw it. It was…” Cuno’s voice was solemn, he did not have the words.

“You know, I’d always thought Cryptids were a way for people to signal that they believed in Race Science without having to say straight out they though anyone who wasn’t in their haplogroup was subhuman.”

“How’s that?”

“You know, the Gnome of Geroma, the Kind Green Ape, if there’s creatures that look sort of human and act sort of human but clearly aren’t human...”

“Wait, so which of us is the Crypid here?”

“I don’t know. What do you think makes someone a person?”

“OK. OK. So let’s say the Cuno believes you. Let’s say the Cuno believes you break every rule you’ve been taught and follow every law. Then all you need to explain to the Cuno is why the fuck would anyone do that to themselves?”

“What, precisely, do you think I am doing to myself?”

“Tell the truth like a retard.”

“I don’t see you lying right now.”

“Well, yeah, there’s no profit in lying to you. No protection, either.”

“No fun?”

“That’s a kid’s game. That’s a…” he was gonna say bitch’s game but then he remembered, for the first time in…quick recalculation…two and a half days, Cunoesse. She lied for all of the above reasons. Hell, the only time she told the truth was when she said she was going to cause damage. He missed her. He wondered if she was doing well. He hoped she was, but not so well she would feel like tracking him down.

“Exactly,” Tillbrook broke in, “and at the age of fifteen, I decided I was through with playing childish games. I was through with my mendacious parents and their perfidious life and I was going to go where they respected honesty.”

Cuno regarded Tillbrook, looked at his honest face and his clear, piercing gaze with its utter lack of eyewear.

“So you’re saying, you ain’t seen the truth yet?”

“Not in the five years since they gave me the cloak. Can’t say it hasn’t taken its toll.”

“So what, you lost your mind?”

“I found it again, we always do, sooner or later.”

Cuno had not been aware that losing one’s mind was reversible. He did not know if this was a comforting thought.

“Why do you think I’m nearly 20 and am only now a Patrol Officer?”

“Slow learner?”

“Hah, funny. But no, I learned plenty quickly. Worked like a dog, taking every extra shift they’d let me. File room, Lazereth, motor pool, radio switchboard, you name it. I wasn’t just gonna be a cop, I was gonna be a supercop like DuBois, McCoy or even Berdyayeva. Finally, they couldn’t put it off any further, and they finally put me on rotation with a pair of real cops.”

“Torson and McLaine?”

“I wish, maybe they’d have let me down gently. No, they had me go with another pair of Sergeants, full on A-Wing so they could sign out a MC. Nobody you’d have heard of, despite that.”

“Cuno’s listening.”

“So we go out on patrol and, on our first day, get this, one of the two suddenly let slip he was a fuckin’ _Peone_.” Cuno realized at this point that this was the first time he’d heard Tillbrook swear.

“Wait, like, the Ma…”

“Shhht. Might have ears even here. But yes.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you think? They tried to arrest each other on the first bullshit charge they could think of, and when both of ‘em had the same idea, they pulled out their fuckin’ patrol sabres....”

“Bullshit, since when are cops issued swords?” Cuno had not known this was a possibility. If this was indeed a possibility, Cuno wondered when he might receive access to one.

“When lethal but not overwhelming force is authorized. Or during a declared period of Incursion, Riot or Civil Defense Emergency. Or when the officer has had at least two alcohol-related, firearm-involved domestic violence incidents. Or, at the discretion of the precinct if the officer has failed his most recent firearm qualification but has a partner with perfect attendance in the prior rolling ninety-day period. But however they got them, there they were.”

“Hardcore, Cop on Cop, chop on chop.”

“Precisely. And despite their best efforts, neither of them was fully dead so I had to apply what little first aid I’d learned in the Pioneers. And I had to get on the horn and fetch Gottlieb. He told me to get them in the car and take them to the station because we here halfway to Villalobos and he was too drunk to drive. I wasn’t even seventeen, and despite my motor pool shifts washing the M.C.s, I didn’t know a throttle from a brake.”

“And then?”

“I somehow managed to get them into the MC, stripped the hell out of every single gear in the box getting ‘em back to the station, got Gottlieb and then snuck into his office while he staggered off to perform First Aid. Whereupon I drank an entire bottle of laudanum to try to make it all stop.”

Cuno whistled, impressed. He knew that laudanum was powdered opium dissolved in pure alcohol, available by prescription only so he hadn’t had it since he was seven. An adult dose was 1.25 milliliters or 25 drops. 30 doses to the one ounce bottle. Tillbrook wasn’t dead, but he probably should have been.

“Tried to top yourself, then?”

“That’s what Gottlieb said, Trauma-and-Stressor disease. Had me committed for six months, but encouraged them to send me straight to the Academy once I was discharged. He testified, and I quote, that ‘this was an act of self-harm rather than an act of theft and thus not an offense that warrants dismissal.’”

“Decent of him.”

“Been more decent of him to stay sober. But…that’s not why I’m out here.”

“So why are you out here? To warn me of the dangers of a perfidious life?”

“Actually, no, the Desk Sergeant sent me.”

“What? I clocked out just like everyone else, Cuno’s learned his lesson about that.”

“No, that’s not it. While you were serving your penalty detail for your incident on Monday, they handed out the ration books to the J.O.’s.” Tillbrook reached a pouch on his gunbelt, and pulled out a slim booklet of coupons.

“Nice, so Cuno’s not eating Turbo Noodles tonight.”

“So, where you gonna eat instead?”

“Dunno, they change the restaurants out every month.” Cuno flipped the book open to the first two tickets which were, as always, blanks that were printed with a list of restaurants, cafeterias and kiosks that claimed to honor the vouchers.

“I’ll pro’lly find somewhere near the barracks.”

“C’mon, there’s a place three blocks down that’s been on the list all year. They actually seem to like cops there.”

“What? They getting the insurance shakedown from some local hood?”

“Probably, but that just means there’s a chance we’ll get to do some good for once.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

“If you’ve sat through this much of my whining, least I can do is buy you dinner.”

“No, straight up, why would you blow what little money you make on a Junior Officer who’s not even going to let you pederast him?”

Tillbrook sighed and regarded the Junior Officer before him, with a good half-dozen centimeters between the tops of his socks and the cuffs of his trousers.

“OK, I’ll level with you. I’ve got something to prove. I want to prove it’s possible to live like I’m living.”

“You’re standing here now, you think the Cuno thinks you’re a gibbering wight pumped full of laudanum and formaldehyde?”

“Yes, yes, we all read our fair share of Hjelmdallerman books. But it's more like…extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary proof, like you said. And the only way I can prove I’m living my life as honestly as the laws of physics allow is, well, to keep living that way and letting people see it.”

“So, what, you feed the Cuno and that proves to the Cuno you’re able to feed the Cuno without lying, stealing or even scamming a single person. And if anyone asks Cuno that means they get one piece in their fact-chain about you not being full of shit? Assuming they believe the Cuno, of course. And you picked the Cuno because nobody else would give you a chance?”

“If that were the case, would that change your calculus?”

“Fuck no, but I want dessert.”


End file.
